What Qualifies an Athlete to be Eligible as a "Woman"?

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What Qualifies an Athlete to be Eligible as a "Woman"?
Opposing Views
by Pat Griffin
07 June, 2010


http://www.opposingviews.com/i/what-qualifies-an-athlete-to-be-eligible-as-a-woman


This is the title of a speech given by African-American abolitionist and former slave, Sojourner Truth, in 1851 at a Women's Rights Conference in Ohio. Her speech was in reaction to the privileges that white women had and the comparative silence about the oppression of Black women within both the women's suffrage movement and the abolitionist movement. Her words reminded the delegates that their definitions of "woman" excluded many women who were not white or middle class.

I am borrowing Sojourner Truth speech title to raise the question of how sports governing organizations determine whether or not an athlete "qualifies" as a woman eligible to compete in women's sports events. I attended a meeting this weekend in Baltimore co-sponsored by Women's Sports International and the American College of Sports Medicine. The meeting was focused on sex verification testing in sport. The purpose was to discuss this controversial issue and, if possible, identify some recommendations for the International Olympic Committee and other sport governing organizations as they work to clarify their own thinking about sex verification testing in the wake of the monumental mishandling of the Caster Semenya case at the World Championships last summer.